Smoking Affects Your Unborn Child By Altering Methylation

Have you seen the poster of a smoking woman who is clearly very pregnant? How about one drinking alcohol? These are horrifying images. I actually shudder to think that these days in our toxic world, even eating out, eating non-organic, eating fish, eating from plastic that has been in the microwave or food that has been in a can or drinking a diet drink with aspartame or drinking any soda with artificial sweeteners is really just as horrifying of an image. The reason is that we live in such a toxic soup of a world, for that unborn child- where’s the love?

It’s high time we make it more clear to the public and thus to our elected officials, that business as usual is costing us more and more with each generation, and greater and greater percentages of our children suffer from autism, ADD, ADHD, developmental delays, diabetes, asthma, allergies, endocrine issues, cancer, heart disease, depression, and anxiety. Need I go on?

We can have health and a beautiful loving home and family, but it’s going to take work and awareness like we’ve never had before.

This article on smoking and epigenetic changes is the wave of the future as more research dollars are put into discovering genetic links to illness and disease. Maternal smoking during pregnancy was found to cause methylation of genes in the AhR signaling pathway, important for the detoxification of the xenobiotics (toxins) in tobacco smoke. They also found that smoking induced methylation of a novel gene involved in fundamental developmental processes. This is direct damage to your unborn child, down to the mechanism by which you do it. I don’t need to understand all the hard core science here. Just know: SMOKING WHILE PREGNANT IS DUMBING DOWN YOUR BABY and putting them at risk for damage from countless other toxins. Dads, if you are smoking, you need to quit for your kids. You certainly can’t expect mom to quit if you don’t. Step up and be a man, do what’s right. Moms, tap into every maternal instinct you have and protect your baby from harm no matter what it takes, no smoking while pregnant.